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of conversation.

So Alaska was really a perfectly wonderful topic. I think I knew at one time every element and every item of his whole career in Alaska, his long dog sled travels, the time he was almost frozen out and they gave him up for dead and then he appeared a week later driving his dog team in. They were very exciting things.

There was no trouble about retiring with the ladies to the drawing room after dinner. You do that anywhere in formal society. That's not Washington. It's been common in any society I've ever moved in. A well-conducted after dinner arrangement of that sort in very agreeable, I think. It's a very good institution, but it should be well-conducted. Somebody in the dining room with the gentlemen, or in the library with the gentlemen, must be aware of time, and must have it as his responsibility to break it up, not to let it drag on and to join the ladies within ten or fifteen minutes in the outside. If it's well-conducted, it happens that way. In an embassy it's usually conducted that way. The embassy people are very correct. Their social affairs are managed. If the host himself doesn't move to break it up, one of the young secretaries dose. The classic remark is, “Shall we join the ladies?” which is always correct.

It's a very good institution, really. It gives the